The Murder of the Informer
As he entered Sir Clinton's office on the following morning, Inspector
Flamborough blurted out bad news without any preliminary beating about
the bush.
“There's been another murder, sir,” he announced, with a tinge of what
seemed grievance in his tone.
Sir Clinton looked up from the mass of papers upon his desk.
“Who is it, this time?” he demanded curtly.
“It's that fellow Whalley, sir—the man who seemed to have some
information about the bungalow affair.”
The Chief Constable leaned back in his chair and gazed at Flamborough
with an expressionless face.
“This is really growing into a wholesale trade,” he said, drily. “Four
murders in quick succession, and we've nothing to show for it. We
can't go on waiting until all the population of Westerhaven, bar one
individual, is exterminated; and then justify ourselves by arresting
the sole survivor on suspicion. The public's getting restive,
Inspector. It wants to know what we do for our money, I gather.”
Inspector Flamborough looked resentful.
“The public'll have to lump it, if it doesn't like it,” he said
crudely. “I've done my best. If you think I ought to hand the thing
over to someone else, sir, I'll be only too glad to do so.”
“I'm not criticising you, Inspector,” Sir Clinton reassured him. “Not
being a member of the public—for this purpose, at least—I know enough
to appreciate your difficulties. There's no burking the fact that
whoever's at the back of this affair is a sharper man than the usual
clumsy murderer. He hasn't left you much of a chance to pick up usable
clues.”
“I've followed up every one that he did leave,” Flamborough argued. “I
don't think I've been exactly idle. But I can't arrest Silverdale
merely because I picked up his cigarette-holder in suspicious
surroundings. Confound the public! It doesn't understand the
difference between having a suspicion and being able to prove a case.”
“Let's hear the details of this latest affair,” Sir Clinton demanded,
putting aside the other subject.
“I've been trying to get hold of this fellow Whalley for the last day
or two, sir, so as to follow up that line as soon as possible,” the
Inspector began. “But, as I told you, he's been away from
Westerhaven—hasn't been seen anywhere in his usual haunts. I've made
repeated inquiries at his lodgings, but could get no word of him
except that he'd gone off. He'd left no word about coming back; but he
obviously did mean to turn up again, for he left all his traps there
and said nothing about giving up his bedroom.”
“You didn't get on his track elsewhere?”
“No, I hardly expected it. He's a very average-looking man and one
couldn't expect people to pick him out of a crowd at a race-meeting by
his appearance.”
Sir Clinton nodded as a permission to the Inspector to continue his
narrative.
“This morning, shortly before seven o'clock,” Flamborough continued,
“the driver of a milk-lorry on the Lizardbridge Road noticed something
in the ditch by the roadside. It was about half an hour before
sunrise, so I expect he still had his lamps alight. It's pretty dark,
these misty mornings. Anyhow, he saw something sticking up out of the
ditch and he stopped his lorry. Then he made out that it was a hand
and arm; so he got down from his seat and had a closer look. I expect
he took it for a casual drunk sleeping things off quietly. However,
when he got up to the side of the road, he found the body of a man in
the ditch, face downward.
“This milkman was a sensible fellow, it seems. He felt the flesh where
he could get at it without moving the body; and the coldness of it
satisfied him that he'd got a deader on his hands. So instead of
muddling about and trampling all over the neighbourhood, he very
sensibly got aboard his lorry again and drove in towards town in
search of a policeman. When he met one, he and the constable went back
on the lorry to the dead man; and the constable stood on guard whilst
the milkman set off with the lorry again to give the alarm.”
“Did you go down yourself, by any chance, Inspector?”
“Yes, sir. The constable happened to recognise Whalley from what he
could see of him—I told you he was pretty well known to our men—and
knowing that I'd been making inquiries about the fellow, they called
me up, and I went down at once.”
“Yes?”
“When I got there, sir,” the Inspector continued, “it didn't take long
to see what was what. It was a case of the tourniquet again. Whalley
had been strangled, just like the maid at Heatherfield. Quite obvious
symptoms: face swollen and congested; tongue swollen, too; eyes wide
open and injected a bit, with dilated pupils; some blood on the mouth
and nostrils. And when I had a chance of looking for it, there was the
mark of the tourniquet on his neck sure enough.”
Flamborough paused, as though to draw attention to his next point.
“I hunted about in the ditch, of course. And there, lying quite
openly, was the tourniquet itself. Quite a complicated affair this
time; he's evidently improved his technique.”
“Well, what about it?” Sir Clinton demanded rather testily, as though
impatient of the Inspector's comments.
“Here it is, sir.”
Flamborough produced the lethal instrument with something of a
flourish.
“You see, sir, it's made out of a banjo-string threaded through a bit
of rubber tubing. The handles are just bits of wood cut from a
tree-branch, the same as before; but the banjo-string and the rubber
tube are a vast improvement on the bit of twine he used last time, at
Heatherfield. There'd be no chance of the banjo-string breaking under
the strain; and the rubber tube would distribute the pressure and
prevent the wire cutting into the flesh as it would have done if it
had been used bare.”
Sir Clinton picked up the tourniquet and examined it with obvious
interest.
“H'm! I don't say you've much to go on, but there's certainly more
here than there was in the other tourniquet. The banjo-string's not
much help, of course; one can buy 'em in any musical-instrument shop.
But the rubber tubing might suggest something to you.”
Inspector Flamborough scrutinised it afresh.
“It's very thick-walled, sir, with a much smaller bore than one would
expect from the outside diameter.”
Sir Clinton nodded.
“It's what they call ‘pressure-tubing’ in a chemical laboratory. It's
used when you're pumping out vessels or working under reduced
pressures generally. That's why it's made so thick-walled: so that it
won't collapse flat under the outside air-pressure when you've pumped
all the gas out of the channel in the middle.”
“I see,” said the Inspector, fingering the tubing thoughtfully. “So
it's the sort of thing one finds in a scientific place like the
Croft-Thornton Institute?”
“Almost certainly,” Sir Clinton agreed. “But don't get too sure about
your rubber tubing. Suppose someone is trying to throw suspicion on
one of the Croft-Thornton staff, wouldn't this be an excellent way of
doing it? One can buy pressure-tubing in the open market. It's not
found exclusively in scientific institutes, you know.”
Flamborough seemed a shade crestfallen at the loss of what he had
evidently regarded as a promising line.
“Oh, indeed?” he said. “I suppose you're right, sir. Still it's a bit
uncommon, isn't it?”
“Not what you'd expect the ordinary criminal to hit on straight off, I
suppose you mean? But this fellow isn't an ordinary criminal. He's got
plenty of brains. Now doesn't it strike you as strange that he should
go to the trouble of leaving this tourniquet for your inspection? He
could have slipped it into his pocket easily enough and it wouldn't
have bulged much.”
“Well, sir, a glance at the body would show anyone that something of
the sort had been used. He wasn't giving much away by leaving the
thing itself, was he?”
Sir Clinton did not seem altogether satisfied with the Inspector's
view.
“The less a murderer leaves behind, the more difficult it is to catch
him, Inspector. That's a truism. Now this fellow is no fool, as I've
frequently remarked to you. Hence one might have anticipated that he'd
leave as few traces as possible. But here he presents us with the
actual weapon, and a weapon that has fairly salient peculiarities of
its own. Queer, isn't it?”
“Then you think it's a non-scientific murderer using scientific
appliances so as to suggest that the crime was done by someone in the
scientific line—Silverdale, I mean?”
Sir Clinton was silent for a moment or two, then he said thoughtfully:
“What I'm not sure about is whether it's a pure bluff or a double
bluff. It looks like one or the other.”
The Inspector obviously had difficulty in interpreting this rather
cryptic utterance. At last he saw his way through it.
“I think I see what you mean, sir. Suppose it's not Silverdale that
did the murder. Then somebody—knowing that this kind of tubing's
common in Silverdale's laboratory—may have left it on purpose for us
to find, so that we'd be bluffed into jumping to the conclusion—as I
admit I did—that Silverdale did the trick. That would be a simple
bluff. Or again, supposing it's Silverdale who's the murderer, then he
may have left the tubing on purpose, because he'd say to himself that
we'd never believe that he'd be such a fool as to chuck a thing like
that down beside the body—and hence we'd pass him over in our
suspicions. Is that it, sir?”
“It sounds devilish involved, as you put it, Inspector; but I have a
sort of dim perception that you've grasped my meaning,” Sir Clinton
answered. “My own impression is simply that we musn't let this
tourniquet lead us too far, for fear we go completely astray. If we
get on the right track, I've no doubt it'll fit neatly enough to the
rest of the evidence; but it's not the sort of thing I'd care about
staking a lot on by itself. Now suppose we come out of these flowery
by-paths and get back to the main thoroughfare of the facts.”
The Inspector refused to be damped by his superior. Indeed, he had the
air of a player holding good cards, and not caring who knew it.
“It was hard frost last night, sir, as you’ll remember; so there were
no foot-prints on the road, or anything of that sort. But the grass by
the side of the ditch is fairly long; and when I examined it, it was
clear enough that there hadn't been any struggle on it. They may have
struggled on the road, of course; but the grass was quite
undisturbed.”
“Then the body hadn't been dragged off the road into the ditch? It
must have been lifted and pitched in?”
“So I think, sir. The grass border between road and ditch is quite
narrow—just room to stand on it comfortably. One could hoist a body
over it without too much trouble.”
“And from the look of the body you think it had been thrown in?”
“Yes, sir. It was huddled up anyhow in the ditch, just as it might
have fallen if it had been dropped in with a thud.”
“Single-handed business, then, you believe?”
“Well, sir, I think if two people had been handling him—one taking his
shoulders and another taking his feet—he'd have fallen more tidily. He
certainly looked as if he's been bundled in anyhow. I'd put it down as
a single-handed job from the look of it.”
“I suppose you examined the pockets, and so forth?” Sir Clinton asked.
“Of course, sir. But there was nothing in _them_ of any use to us.”
The Inspector's voice betrayed that he had something still in reserve.
Now he brought it forward.
“I examined his hands, sir; and in the right one, I found something
important. The hand was clenched, and when I got it open at last, this
fell out.”
He produced a button with a shred of cloth attached to it, which he
laid on the desk before Sir Clinton. The Chief Constable picked it up,
examined it closely, and then, pulling out a pocket magnifying glass,
made a still more minute inspection.
“Very interesting, Inspector. What do you make of it?”
“Obviously it was torn off the murderer's clothes during the struggle,
sir. And I've seen something like it before. You see that
canary-coloured stain on the bit of cloth and also on the threads that
hold the button to the fabric?”
“Dyed with picric acid, by the look of it, I should say. Is that what
you mean?”
“Yes, sir. And the pattern of the cloth's another point.”
“You mean it looks like a button torn off the old jacket that
Silverdale was wearing, that day we saw him at the Croft-Thornton
Institute—his laboratory coat?”
“That's undoubtedly what it is, sir. I remember that stain perfectly.
And as soon as I saw it, I remembered the pattern of the cloth.”
“And your view is?”
“I think that when Silverdale set out to murder Whalley he was afraid
that some blood from the face might get on to his coat. So he put on
his old laboratory jacket. If it got spotted, he could destroy it and
rouse no suspicions. It was only an old coat that he might think was
worn out. Quite a different thing from destroying some of his ordinary
clothes. That would have been suspicious. But an old coat—no one would
wonder if he got rid of it and brought another one down to the
laboratory to replace it.”
“It sounds deuced plausible, Inspector, I must admit. But——”
“But what, sir?”
“Well,” Sir Clinton answered thoughtfully, “it leaves us again with
the choice between the single and the double bluff, you see, even if
one goes no further with one's inquiries.”
The Inspector pondered over the point for a few seconds, but at the
end of his cogitation he seemed unimpressed. Apparently, however, he
thought it wise to change the subject.
“In any case, sir, I think Whalley's part in the bungalow affair is
pretty plain now. I told you he was the sort of fellow who was out for
easy money, no matter how dirty it might be. By the way, he was the
man who inquired about the number of that motor which he said knocked
him spinning—an obvious try-on to get damages, although he wasn't hurt
at all. You can see he'd do anything to make money and save himself
from honest work. If you remember that, it's easy enough to see the
part he played at the bungalow. He was the person you christened
Peeping Tom.”
“Anything further about him that you can think of, Inspector? I don't
say you're wrong, of course.”
“Well, sir, if Silverdale expected to take his wife in _flagrante
delicto_, he'd need an independent witness, wouldn't he? Possibly
Whalley was the man he picked out for the work.”
“Do you think he was the sort of witness that was wanted? I'm not so
sure of his suitability myself.”
“It wasn't exactly a nice job, sir,” the Inspector pointed out.
“Silverdale would hardly care to take one of his close friends to
inspect an affair of that sort. And of course a woman——”
He broke off suddenly, as though struck by a fresh idea. Sir Clinton
ignored the last phrase of the Inspector.
“Assume that Whalley was the witness, then, what next?”
“Assume that Silverdale posted Whalley at the second window and went
round to the first one—at the front. Then, to make the thing complete,
he breaks in through the window and jumps into the room. Young
Hassendean has his pistol and mistakes the state of affairs—thinks
that Silverdale means to thrash him or worse. He pulls out his pistol
and there's a struggle for the possession of it. The pistol goes off
accidentally, and the bullet hits Mrs. Silverdale in the head by pure
chance. Then the struggle goes on, and in the course of it, young
Hassendean gets shot twice over in the lung.”
The Chief Constable looked at his subordinate with quite unaffected
respect.
“It looks as if you'd come very near the truth there,” he admitted.
“Go on.”
“The rest's fairly obvious, if you grant what's gone before. Whalley's
seen the whole affair from his post at the window. He sneaks off into
the dark and gets out of Silverdale's reach. If he hadn't, then
Silverdale would probably have shot him at sight to destroy the chance
of evidence against him. But when Whalley has time to think things
over, he sees he's got a gold-mine in the business. If he can
blackmail Silverdale, he's got a steady income for life. But I expect
he weakened and tried to play for safety. He blackmailed Silverdale;
then he came to us, so that he could say he'd been to the police,
meaning to give information. Then he went back to Silverdale, and in
some way he let out that he'd given us a call. That would be enough
for Silverdale. Whalley would have to go the way the maid went. And so
he did.”
Sir Clinton had listened intently to the Inspector's reconstruction of
the episode.
“That's very neat indeed, Inspector,” he adjudged at the close. “It's
quite sound, so far as it goes, and so far as one can see. But, of
course, it leaves one or two points untouched. Where does the murder
of the maid come into the business?”
Flamborough reflected for a moment or two before answering.
“I'm not prepared to fill that gap just at this moment, sir. But I'll
suggest something. Renard told us that Mrs. Silverdale was going to
draw up a note of the terms of her new will. It's on the cards that
Silverdale knew about that—she may have mentioned it to him. He'd want
to get that note and destroy it at any cost, before there was any
search of his house or any hunting through Mrs. Silverdale's
possessions.”
“He might have thought it worth while, I admit. But I'd hardly think
it important enough to lead to an unnecessary murder. Besides, it
wasn't necessary for Silverdale to murder the maid at all. It was his
own house. He could search where he chose in it and nobody could
object. The maid wouldn't see anything strange in that.”
“It was pretty clear that the maid knew her murderer, anyhow,” the
Inspector pointed out. “Everything points to that. I admit I'm only
making a guess, sir. I can't bring any evidence against Silverdale on
that count yet. For all one can tell, she may have seen
something—blood on his coat from the shots, or something of that sort.
Then he'd have to silence her.”
Sir Clinton made no comment on the Inspector's suggestion. Instead, he
turned to a fresh aspect of the case.
“And where does Mr. Justice come into your theory of the affair? He
wasn't your friend Whalley. That's evident.”
The Inspector rubbed his nose thoughtfully, as though trying to gain
inspiration from the friction.
“It's a fact, sir, that I can't fit Mr. Justice into my theory at
present. He wasn't Whalley, and that's a fact. But hold on a moment!
Suppose that Whalley wasn't Silverdale's witness at all. Come to think
of it, Whalley was hardly the sort that one would pick out for the
job, if one had been in Silverdale's shoes.”
“I'm quite convinced of that, at any rate, Inspector. You needn't
waste breath in persuading me.”
“Yes, but there's another possibility that's been overlooked, sir,”
Flamborough interrupted eagerly. “I've been assuming all along that
Silverdale was the only person at the opened window. But suppose he'd
brought someone along with him. Both of them might have been looking
through the front window, whilst Whalley was at the side window, quite
unknown to them at the time.”
“Now you're getting positively brilliant, Inspector,” Sir Clinton
commended. “I think you've got at least half the truth there, beyond a
doubt.”
“Who could Silverdale's witness have been?” the Inspector pursued, as
if impatient of the interruption. “What about the Deepcar girl?”
“Think again,” Sir Clinton advised him drily. “Do you really suppose
that Silverdale—who seems in love with the girl—would have picked her
out for business of that sort? It's incredible, Inspector.”
The first flush of enthusiasm at his discovery passed from
Flamborough's thoughts at the tone of the Chief Constable's voice.
“I suppose you're right, sir,” he had to admit. “But there's another
girl who'd have enjoyed the job—and that's the Hailsham girl. She'd
have given a good deal just for the pleasure of seeing those two
humiliated. She'd have gloated over the chance of giving that
particular evidence in court and squaring accounts with young
Hassendean and Mrs. Silverdale. It would have been all jam to her,
sir. You can't deny that.”
Sir Clinton conceded the point without ado.
“I won't deny it,” he said curtly. “But you needn't let your mind run
exclusively on the female population of Westerhaven in a matter of
this sort. A man would be a much more convenient witness for
Silverdale to take with him. Why leave Silverdale's male friends out
of account?”
“If you're thinking of Markfield, sir, we'll not get much out of him,
I'm afraid,” Flamborough pronounced. “So far, except when he couldn't
help it, he's done his level best to refuse any information about
Silverdale and his doings—if he hasn't actually served out misleading
statements to us. I don't much care for Dr. Markfield's way of going
about things.”
Sir Clinton crossed the room and took down his hat from its peg.
“Well, let's sample his methods once more, Inspector. We'll go round
now to the Croft-Thornton and look into the question of the jacket.
You can bear the burden of the interview, if you like; but I should
prefer to hear what goes on. And you might press Silverdale a little
more sharply about his doings on the night of the bungalow affair. We
may as well give him a chance of second thoughts, though really I
don't expect anything from him at this stage.”